Tag: bestof

6 Upcoming Apple TV Games We’re Excited About

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Over the last few months, ATVG has posted previews of several upcoming games that caught our interest. This morning, after putting them all in one list in the interest of housekeeping, and purely for the love of lists, we thought, hey, that’s a nice little list. It’s nice to get all your ducks in a row occasionally and do a roundup of games that are just over the horizon somewhere. It’s fun talking about games that you can’t play yet – building anticipation, and just a little hype. The gaming industry and media has a love/hate relationship with hype – we love it, and then we hate it. After it bites us on the arse.

Anyway…

There’s six in total, from shooters, to RPGs, and platform games. Something for everyone. And then there’s a seventh game at the bottom of the list. This seventh game hasn’t actually been announced for Apple TV – it’s more wishful thinking than anything else – but rumblings across the Internet lead us to believe there’s a good chance it might make it’s way to the platform, so it’s being added as a possibly…maybe…hopefully…upcoming game for Apple TV.

Right? Right.

Let’s hook in then. Hit the page 2 button. Now. Now!

Three Apple TV Games You Need to Play that Require a Controller

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When Apple’s digital-only console hit shelves in 2015, the hope of seeing the above screenshot from Halfbrick’s Dan The Man was a pipe dream. At launch, the tech giant’s rules stipulated that every game released needed to be playable with the Siri Remote. For those hoping for a credible addition to the gaming landscape, this was seen by many as a handicap.

To get a complex, traditional gaming experience such as a first-person-shooter onto ATV’s App Store, developers needed to get pretty creative when mapping a control scheme to the Siri Remote. Have you ever tried playing Gameloft’s Modern Combat 5 with it? It’s like trying to rub your head and pat your tummy while reciting the alphabet backwards.

Two thumb sticks, shoulder buttons and triggers, a diamond-shaped configuration of four face-buttons, and possibly a d-pad – the now traditional gamepad layout has become second nature to gamers. Even when hopping between consoles, from Xbox to PlayStation, and now also the Nintendo Switch, the muscle memory goes with you like a physical language we learned to speak with our hands a couple of decades ago. Play Modern Combat 5 with a proper controller and it’s actually a pretty decent FPS.

Thankfully, Apple slowly seems to be getting it, and at WWDC 2016 the rules were relaxed to allow games to require a controller, and gamers finally started to see screenshots like the one above when loading up a game with only the Siri Remote connected.

I recently posted a piece outlining three excellent gaming experiences to enjoy just with your Siri Remote, but where would Yin be without Yang? So here is its companion piece: excellent games that won’t let you play them without a traditional game controller.

Hit page 2 for more.

gods-of-rome-controller-supportScreenshot from Gameloft’s Gods Of Rome

Three Games You Need to Play if You Only Have a Siri Remote

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Not everyone who owns a fourth generation Apple TV also owns a compatible game controller, or is even aware of how capable the device is when it comes to gaming. It’s a pity Apple doesn’t make available some sort of Gaming Starter Pack, which might consist of an Apple TV, a game controller (such as a Steel Series Nimbus), and a $20 iTunes card with which to start exploring your gaming options. If such a pack were available either online or in Apple Stores, at the very least it might raise awareness of this aspect of the hardware’s very capable gaming functionality.

The input device that comes with the Apple TV – the Siri Remote – is ideal for enabling the device’s most popular activities: navigating the menus in order to consume content. The Siri Remote is not ideal for interacting with traditional video games though. To enjoy the shooters, adventures, RPGs, platform games, and racing games, you’ll need to equip yourself with a controller.

Apple TV’s App Store consists mainly of two varieties of games: the larger, more traditional video game experiences, and the very simple, one-touch mobile games that have been ported to the device. The Siri Remote is very capable of handling the latter variety, yet those are not really the sorts of games you settle down to for a gaming session in front of a large flatscreen.

So what do you play if you haven’t yet invested in a controller, and yet you want more than just a simple auto-runner? Luckily there are some examples of a third type of game available on Apple TV’s App Store, with simple enough gameplay mechanics that map nicely to the Siri Remote, and yet are larger, more fleshed-out experiences that actually cause you to forget how simple they really are.

The trick is in the details. Visual, sonic, and narrative flourishes that enhance the simple gameplay  mechanics to create a fascinating middle-ground of not-quite-mobile-game, yet not-quite-traditional-video-game either.

Mashing page 2 below, you’ll discover three of these types of games, and they are a credit to their developers. Studios such as Semidome Inc., Cobra Mobile, and Square Enix Montreal have managed to pull off exemplary titles that fall into this third category, enabling you to get closer to a fuller gaming experience with only your Siri Remote in hand.